The American Catholic Hierarchy: Roman Rednecks

The bishops, archbishops and cardinals of the American Catholic Church must stop their intense intrusive interference in the 2008 American Presidential election. As citizens, they are entitled to their opinions; but, as churchmen, they are abusing their power. To advocate that Catholics vote for a candidate or party solely on the basis of one issue, abortion, is not only irresponsible, but reflective of their ignorance about so many other crucial issues of life in America and the world.

As a a Catholic layman and graduate of a major Catholic university (in the Midwest), Catholic high school (in coastal southern California) and Catholic grammar school (north New Jersey coast), I resent their Vatican-led charge back into 19th Century mentality. Frankly, I believe their current involvement in politics is a deliberate distraction, an attempt to reassert the influence they lost as a result of the Catholic priests' sexual abuse scandal. It seems particularly odd that these "men" are so concerned about abortion when they allowed and participated in the extraordinarily widespread sexual abuse of children by priests in Catholic dioceses throughout the United States. Many in the hierarchy are criminals who have not faced trial.....and, probably, never will! .....and, yet, we laymen are expected to behave like their "sheep" and follow their pronouncements on matters of theology......and, apparently, politics.

I have known and benefited from many fine, dedicated Catholic priests, brothers and nuns in my life: Jesuits, Holy Cross Fathers, Brothers of St. Patrick and Sisters of St. Joseph of Chestnut Hill and others. But, the Catholic hierarchy, to me, are pontificating, self-serving hypocrites, who a college classmate of mine, a life long journalist from New England, once characterized as "not very Christ-like !".

As a Catholic husband and father, I have resolved that the hierarchy are irrelvant to my life until they are purged and punished for their misdeeds to the Catholic children and women of America. I don't expect that to occur in my lifetime, if ever. As a citizen of the United States of America, I will ignore the political pronouncements of these corrupt "men", follow my own conscience, and vote for the only Presidential candidate who honorably and truely reflects the virtues of faith, hope and charity proclaimed by the Catholic Church, Senator Barack Obama!

Please consider the following about the Catholic vote. My thanks to the author and the Los Angeles Times.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-rutten29-2008oct29,0,6174226.column

Some Thoughts Before the 2008 Election

I am an idealist, usually a cautious optimist, not a Democrat, a life-long Republican turned Independent, disillusioned in 2000 by the Republicans' choice of the frat-boy mediocrity Bush as their Presidential candidate. I quit the Republican Party when Bush was nominated. To me, the Republicans were spitting in the eyes of America - Bush's nomination: an insult to all Americans. Clearly, this was a setup, a put-up deal by the big interests, particularly oil. Bush, Cheney and the Republicans proved to be disgraceful failures beyond anything I could have imagined. Nixon and Clinton's misdeeds, as serious as they were, were nothing compared with the Bush crowd's record. Needless war based on lies, murder of our soldiers and foreign innocents, trashing the Constitution, prostituting the work of legitimate scientists, corruption, outrageously erroneous foreign policy, torture, politicizing the military, the Justice Department and environmental departments and on and on....

I don't hate Bush, I just despise him for what he has done to the United States of America and the world at large. To me, Bush, Cheney and their crowd are the pinnacle of evil and immorality. I have no doubt that reputable historians and political scientists will find little Bush to be the worst President in the history of our country. If Clinton or anyone else had done this, I would feel the same. So, it's not liberal versus conservative. It's stupidity, ignorance, greed and malevolence versus the honor and opportunity to serve the people of America with excellence.

Maybe some actually hate Bush for this saga of misdeeds. It's not my personal approach. The argument of conservatives versus liberals is tiresome and out of date. Democrats and Republicans are out of date. As a nation of presumably educated people, we should be sufficiently analytically sophisticated to determine reasonable and proper courses of action that are best for America. But, no, we insist on regressing to prejudice, ignorance and preconceived notions. We do not think. We just react.

What good are underlying principles if the proponents don't live by them? I call them hypocrites. Most of the Congress and the Executive Branch are hypocrites, in my view. I am not a cynic, but I tend to believe what I see and hear in the misdeeds of these people, even as we watched some of them shunt around the ethics rules as the Democrats partied here in Denver during the Democratic National Convention in August.

There are so many axes of culture in America, that, to treat only the liberal versus conservative scale is to vastly oversimplfy. I think the "haters" are the extremists on any axis. The depth of their hatred may be amplified by interaction with other cultural dimensions. Hatred impedes clear thinking and serves no one beneficially.

I am an American who loves and cares for our country. I care for the future of this country and those, including my own children, who will live in it. I want to get on with rebuilding the integrity of the nation we once had. I care not for Republicans or Democrats, as such, but only for those politicians who share that grander view and have the talent and personal integrity to pursue it selflessly. Wisdom and common purpose must replace hatred and divisiveness. Only dramatic change in the near future will enable that. Otherwise, as a nation, I am certain we will continue to decline to an inevitable third world status.

I strongly recommend for your consideration the following Comment from the Talk of the Town section in the October 13, 2008 issue of The New Yorker Magazine:

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2008/10/13/081013taco_talk_editors?yrail

My thanks to the editors of The New Yorker. I have not seen the reasons to vote for Senator Barack Obama stated more convincingly !